Although the Centre County Regional Planning Commission is updating its comprehensive plan of the area and asking the community to express its concerns, some community members said their voices will be insignificant compared to the University's.

The commission is currently reviewing the type, pattern and timing of the growth in the region in order to produce a new comprehensive plan to help manage the region's expansion. The region's last plan was created in 1976, said Robert Bini, the commission's planning director in his presentation, "Planning in the Region: Envisioning and Managing our Future," last night.

Bini, a 1972 University graduate, said, "If the University continues its efforts such as a business and research park and a parking garage, the growth to the community will be more dramatic.

"The University has been receptive in terms of allowing the municipality to view its plans and look at the effect on the community," Bini said.

However, Ralph Seeley, a University associate professor of engineering research and a former member of the commission, said the region has no control over the University's decisions and never will.

"Bryce Jordan is one of the most development-minded presidents I've ever seen," Seeley said.

He cited the development of the Mount Nittany Expressway as an example of the University's power in the community, saying its location was essentially decided by Penn State administrators.

Bini, however, said local residents can still influence the regional plan because it is in the early stages.

"We're relatively early in the process of developing the implementation program and are encouraging involvement," he said.

The commission surveyed over 1,000 Centre County residents in 1986 to establish how the community views itself and to develop goals for the new plan, Bini said.

"If you want to sum up the community's development goals, it is to maintain a high quality of life," he said.

In the survey residents ranked their three most important concerns as maintaining a low level of environment pollution, having access to open space near residential areas and protecting neighborhoods from encroachment by non-residential uses, Bini said.

To deal with the region's growth, the commission will devise a comprehensive plan including areas appropriate for development and conservation; historical and corridor overlay areas and developmental centers, Bini said.

"We want human activity which compliments rather than destroys the human environment," he said.